The Heirs of Death

39. Black Mirror

BLACK MIRROR

Find the Aubarios.
Take its heart.
Leave.

Those words hunted every thought. They echoed in my ears. They rang in my bones. But what was that Aubarios? What would I find in it?

I sank deeper in the bathtub, foam rising up to my chin as my muscles loosened in the deliciously hot water. I could still remember how hard blood had pumped in my temples, how breathless I was when I'd merged back into my clone and sauntered my way up to my wing.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache slowly building up. At least Blake didn't sense us, and Ha-ámej kept us as his own secret or else we would have been long since dead.

He knew who I was. All along.

The Prince's son.
A creature of night.

He didn't tell me his real name. He didn't tell me what was that damned Aubarios. He didn't tell me why the name Blake had called him had sounded familiar.

Who are you, Ha-ámej?

I let out a long breath, reaching for the mug on the small table, the contraceptive herbs' smell heavily filling the bathroom. It ran warm down my throat, a bit bitter despite all the sweetener, but it worked nonetheless. The mug drifted back to its place as I reclined my head on the lip of the tub. Fancy, extravagant, luxurious. The ruling family knew taste and elegance, and it showed in the amount of details taken care of in the castle, in the heavily ornamented dining tables left for important dinners, in the way the royals and the wealthiests of the continent dressed.

But it didn't stretch far within Evanor, only gracing the castle and all the buildings falling beneath its wings, the avenue where those filthy rich traders lived, and the Tower, home of the elite guards at their Majesties' service. An eight levels building, the ground one a training center heavily equipped, the second for the fifteenth, fourteenth, and thirteenth sentinels, and the rest split in two halves, one for the men, the other for the women, the penthouse left for Aedis and I, the ceiling magically charmed as in letting us see the sky without being exposed.

The loud howling winds ceased, and I heard the windows I left open for him clicking shut. I knew he'd come through flying, not bothering with the stairs-he'd been doing that for a while now. I didn't rush out of the bath, and instead sank in it even more, a small flick of magic keeping the water hot. Exhaustion seeped in my bones; it had been long since I felt this drained. But the spell I had to keep maintaining cost quite much, and the only thing that gave me a lick of easiness was knowing that when fleeing, Ha-ámej's powers had sealed whatever gaps I had needed to leave to make it out before Blake found out.